, 28 September 2017
Development The series was co-directed by
Tom Tykwer, , and
Achim von Borries, who also wrote the scripts. The 16 episodes of the first two seasons were adapted by Tykwer, von Borries and Handloegten from the novel
Der nasse Fisch (
The Wet Fish) (2008) by
Volker Kutscher and were filmed over eight months beginning in May 2016. German public broadcaster
ARD and pay TV channel Sky co-produced the series, a first time collaboration in German television. As part of the arrangement, Sky broadcast the series first, and ARD started broadcasts by free-to-air television on 30 September 2018.
Netflix purchased rights for the United States, Canada, and Australia, where the series became available in 2018 with English dubbing and subtitles. as well as the most expensive non-English language television drama series ever produced.
Later seasons The third season of
Babylon Berlin was filmed over six months from late 2018 to May 2019. At the 32nd European Film Awards in December 2019,
showrunners Achim von Borries, Henk Handloegten and Tom Tykwer stated that the third season was in post-production and that a fourth season was planned. The third season was developed loosely around the second novel in Volker Kutscher's trilogy
The Silent Death. The showrunners chose to diverge from the source material to better address the social and political unrest during the time period as they felt that the Weimar Republic is often overlooked by both media and historical sources. The third season is set in late 1929 around the
Black Tuesday stock market crash and navigates the rise of the subversive
Black Reichswehr and
communist political groups as well as the advent of
talkies. In a January 2020 interview with
Berliner Zeitung, actress Liv Lisa Fries said that production would likely begin on the fourth season in late 2020 or early 2021. Planning and writing for the fourth season, based on the novel
Goldstein, began in October 2020. Filming began in early 2021 and was completed in September 2021, with the production having shot for 129 days at Studio Babelsberg and at locations around Berlin.
Season 4 is set in late 1930 and early 1931. It premiered on 8 October 2022. Von Borries has spoken along similar lines, saying: We always said it was over in 1933. If there is a final season, it would be the first months after the so-called seizure of power before the
Reichstag fire. The National Socialists had turned the country upside down so fundamentally that the Babylonian in Berlin was over. After that we don't want to go on. After
Sky Deutschland decided to stop ordering scripted originals in June 2023, the producers of the show
ARD Degeto, X Filme Creative Pool and
Beta Film committed to developing a fifth season. In a February 2024 interview, star Liv Lisa Fries said the fifth and final season is tentatively scheduled to film in late 2024. In June 2024, it was announced that the fifth and final season would be filmed starting in late 2024. It consists of eight episodes and is based on the fifth novel in the series,
The March Fallen. The season follows Charlotte investigating a series of murders of soldiers, while Gereon goes missing. It begins on 30 January 1933, when Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, and continues through a five-week period of violence by the Nazis against their political opponents, culminating with the
German federal election on 5 March 1933, when Hitler gained total control of the government. Handloegten, von Borries and Tykwer said in a press release: In the final season of Babylon Berlin, we put February 1933 under the magnifying glass: Rarely has a society been torn apart more radically in such a short period of time than Germany in this chaotic month. Not only Gereon Rath and Charlotte Ritter, but all our protagonists also must realize that they only have a few options left: Subordinate themselves, risk their lives in open opposition, retreat into inner emigration or flee into exile. However, this decisive month also opens the possibility of changing the course of history at the last second.
Era In an interview with
The Wall Street Journal, one of the show's co-creators, Tom Tykwer, spoke about the era: At the time people did not realize how absolutely unstable this new construction of society which the
Weimar Republic represented was. It interested us because the fragility of democracy has been put to the test quite profoundly in recent years... By 1929, new opportunities were arising. Women had more possibilities to take part in society, especially in the labour market as Berlin became crowded with new thinking, new art, theatre, music and journalistic writing. In the first season,
communists, Soviets and especially
Trotskyists play a prominent role (the Soviet ambassador to Germany from 1923 to 1930 was former
Trotsky ally
Nikolay Krestinsky). The show depicts what became known as
Blutmai, violence between communist demonstrators and members of the
Berlin Police in early May 1929, and extra-legal
paramilitary formations promoted by the
German Army, known as the Black Reichswehr. In the first season, the
Soviet ambassador in Berlin, who appears to be a loyal Stalinist, is involved in the massacre of Trotskyists in the printing shop, who were buried in a
mass grave outside the city. According to Nathaniel Flakin, this event never happened. Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler, on the other hand, is only mentioned in passing during the first two seasons of Babylon Berlin.
Locations 's Metropolitan Backlot, 2016
Babelsberg Studio constructed a massive addition to its Metropolitan Backlot for the filming of the series and for future productions. This permanent standing set is billed as one of the largest in Europe. The set includes recreations of various Berlin neighbourhoods, from a range of economic classes. It also includes the large exterior of the night club
Moka Efti. In addition, the series was filmed throughout
Berlin and at other locations in the surrounding state of
Brandenburg. Numerous scenes were filmed on
Alexanderplatz in front of the historic . The police headquarters, once located directly behind it, and other surrounding buildings, were destroyed in WWII, but were recreated with computer simulations. The
Rotes Rathaus (Berlin City Hall) was used for most closeup scenes involving the exterior of the police headquarters, because their red brick appearance and architectural style are very similar. Interiors of the police headquarters lobby were filmed at the
Rathaus Schöneberg, including scenes with its
paternoster elevator, while the elegant Ratskeller restaurant in the same building was used as the nearby café '''' in multiple scenes. Other interior scenes in the police headquarters were filmed in the historic . Interior scenes in the
Moka Efti were filmed at the 'Delphi Cinema' in
Berlin-Weissensee. Bar Tausend, in Berlin served as the show's Holländer Bar. A lengthy suspense sequence set during a performance of
The Threepenny Opera, was filmed at the historic
Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, where the play actually ran at the time. The in
Prenzlauer Berg was used for scenes of Anno and Helga's wedding. The headquarters of the
Katholischer Studentenverein Askania-Burgundia Berlin, located in a villa in
Dahlem, were used for the residence of Councillor Benda and his family. The atrium of the was used as Dr. Schmidt's psychiatric clinic. The interiors and exteriors of the historic former were used as numerous locations in the series, including as the exterior of the Soviet Embassy. Because the complex was empty at the time of filming, it was also used as the production headquarters, and to house the show's thousands of costumes. Other scenes were filmed on
Museum Island, in the
Hermannplatz U-Bahn station, at the , and the
Church of the Redeemer on the
Havel river in
Potsdam. Portions of the series were also filmed in the state of
North Rhine-Westphalia. Scenes set at Schloss Liebenberg, the estate of the Nyssen family, were filmed at
Schloss Drachenburg, a castle in the
Rhineland. The in
Cologne was used as the
Anhalter Güterbahnhof. The
Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord, a disused steel plant near
Duisburg, was used as the factory adjacent to Bruno Wolter's apartment, in which numerous sequences take place. Scenes involving a steam train were filmed in the state of
Bavaria at the
Bavarian Railway Museum near
Nördlingen. A number of new locations were introduced in Season 3. Berlin's
Old City Hall served as the interior and exterior of the
Berlin Stock Exchange. The
Ullsteinhaus was used as the editorial offices of the
Tempo newspaper, which were actually located there at the time. The
Kammergericht in Berlin served as the
Ministry of the Reichswehr. The Cafe Grosz doubled for the historic
Romanisches Café, destroyed in WWII. The District Council Hall of the was used for the court room for both Greta's trial in Season 3 and Katelbach's trial in Season 4. The Gästehaus am Lehnitzsee, a hotel housed in the historic , the pre-WWII mansion of Louis Adlon, manager of the famed
Hotel Adlon, was used as the villa of Edgar and Esther Kasabian. New locations introduced in Season 4 include the
Karl-Marx-Allee, used in multiple episodes as the
Kurfürstendamm; the Amtsgericht Wedding, the exterior and interior of which appear in multiple episodes as the Landgericht Berlin-Mitte; and the GASAG Building on Littenstraße, used as the Berlin headquarters of the Nazi Party. File:Filmstudio Babelsberg Eingang.jpg|
Babelsberg Studio in
Potsdam File:Babylonberlinfilmset.jpg|Production of
Babylon Berlin on the Metropolitan Backlot, 2016 File:BabylonBerlinFilmset.jpg|Production of
Babylon Berlin on the Metropolitan Backlot, 2016 File:Berlin Alexanderplatz - Alexanderhaus 1.jpg|Alexanderhaus, on Alexanderplatz File:Berlin im Frühjahr 2014 - panoramio (90).jpg|Side entrance of the
Berlin City Hall, used as Police Headquarters File:Rathaus Schoeneberg.JPG|The lobby of the
Rathaus Schöneberg, used as the lobby of Police Headquarters File:Berlin schoeneberg rathaus 01.10.2013 10-09-22 ShiftN.jpg|Ratskeller Restaurant of the
Rathaus Schöneberg, used as Aschinger cafe File:Berlin%2C_Mitte%2C_Dorotheenstrasse%2C_Naturwissenschaftliche_Institute_der_Universitaet.jpg|Robert-Koch-Forum, used for interior scenes set at Police Headquarters File:U-Bahn Berlin Hermannplatz.JPG|
Hermannplatz station in
Berlin-Neukölln File:Stummfilmkino-Delphi-Berlin-Prenzlauer-Berg-04-2018.jpg|The former Delphi cinema in
Berlin-Weissensee, used as the Moka Efti nightclub File:Berlin Berliner Ensemble.jpg|
Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, location of
The Threepenny Opera sequences File:Berlin Immanuelkirche gesamt.JPG|Interior of the Immanuelkirche, used for Anno and Helga's wedding File:Dahlem Pücklerstraße Askania-Burgundia Korporationshaus.JPG|Villa in Dahlem used as the Benda residence File:Lichthof Behrensbau.jpg|Atrium of the Behrensbau, used as the psychiatric clinic File:Berlin, Mitte, Mauerstrasse 25-28, Deutsche Bank, Block II.jpg|Former Deutsche Bank headquarters, used as the Soviet Embassy File:Potsdam-Sacrow - Heilandskirche (Church of the Redeemer) - geo.hlipp.de - 29838.jpg|
Church of the Redeemer at the
Havel river in
Potsdam File:Schloss Drachenburg Bild 1.jpg|
Drachenburg Castle in the
Rhineland File:Galopprennbahn Hoppegarten Haupttribüne.jpg|Hoppegarten Racecourse File:RIM_Koeln_1.JPG|Rheinisches Industriebahn-Museum, used as the Anhalter Güterbahnhof File:Landschaftspark Duisburg Nord (25643647868).jpg|Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord File:Ullsteinhaus_march_2015.jpg|
Ullsteinhaus houses the offices of
Tempo in Season 3 File:Altes Stadthaus, Westseite, Berlin-Mitte, 160213, ako.jpg|Berlin's Old City Hall, used as the stock exchange in Season 3 File:Kammergericht Berlin.jpg|The Kammergericht, used as the Ministry of the Reichswehr in Season 3 File:Kammergericht, Berlin-Schöneberg, Treppenhalle (1), 160809, ako.jpg|Lobby of the Kammergericht File:Rathaus Treptow8.jpg|District Council Hall of Rathaus Treptow File:Charlottenburg Haus Cumberland Cafe Grosz.JPG|Cafe Grosz was used as the Romanisches Café in Season 3 File:Woelckpromenade Berlin.jpg|Woelckpromenade 7, the exterior of Rath's apartment File:2019-08-06 Karl-Marx-Allee, Berlin.jpg|
Karl-Marx-Allee, used as the
Kurfürstendamm in Season 4 File:Amtsgericht Wedding.jpg|Amtsgericht Wedding, used as the Landgericht Berlin-Mitte in Season 4 File:Wedding-amtsgericht3.jpg|Lobby of the Amtsgericht Wedding File:Berlin, Mitte, Littenstraße, GASAG-Geschäftshaus 01.jpg|GASAG Building
Music In 2018, the show formed an in-house band, the , to perform the original music from the show. The group plays period-era music in a variety of styles ranging from
ragtime to
klezmer. Named after the nightclub featured in
Babylon Berlin, the Moka Efti Orchestra is a 14-member group and is fronted by the Lithuanian actress
Severija Janušauskaitė as Svetlana Sorokina. In the first double episode of the first season, Janušauskaitė's character, crossdressing as the male singer Nikoros, performs the main theme of the series, "" in the Moka Efti cabaret. This song was later released and charted on the German singles chart. In addition to period music, "
Dance Away", from the 1979 album
Manifesto by
Roxy Music, plays occasionally in the background (adapted to the style of the period) and also included is an adaptation of "
These Foolish Things" and, in the Season Two finale, a Russian version of "
Gloomy Sunday". Singer
Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music appears toward the end of the first season as a cabaret singer performing "Bitter-Sweet", half in English, half in German, from the 1974 album
Country Life. A major action sequence in season two takes place during a performance of
The Threepenny Opera. The song "" ("The Ballad of Mack the Knife") is featured in that scene, and also as a plot device. Two different characters hum the tune, giving detective Rath clues to the unfolding plot. == Broadcast ==